


The Right Hand of God

by Hyenada (orphan_account), seabiscuitt



Category: The Man in the High Castle (TV)
Genre: Beware the spoilers, Character Study, Effective AU Right From The Get Go, F/M, Flashbacks - Interstitial Scenes, M/M, Multi Point of View, Other, Rated For Violence, Rated for Bad Ideological Content that is BAD, Rated for Homophobia, Rated for Racism, Specific Warnings Will Be Chapter-By-Chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2020-06-17
Packaged: 2020-07-27 09:35:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20043811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Hyenada, https://archiveofourown.org/users/seabiscuitt/pseuds/seabiscuitt
Summary: "You would risk this, all for one man?""One good man, begging your pardon, sir."In the face of war, the Reich teeters in the balance between unlimited domination and mutually assured destruction. Amidst the struggles and incessant in-fighting, the shifting loyalties built on crumbling allegiances undermined by betrayal - dishonesty,Sturmbannführer Raeder stands quietly at ease one-and-a-half steps behind the Oberstgruppenführer and wonders where in the hell he went wrong.





	1. Loyalitätsnacht

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A certain someone went and did this man so gooddamn dirty,
> 
> I'm here to fix that ;;
> 
> Warnings Specifically For:  
\- Mentions of injury and blood  
\- Mentions of suicide  
\- Mild mentions of violence in relation to Reich's (goddamn stupid) ideological views, specifically the SS  
\- Mild mentions of PTSD symptoms.

Later on down the line, they'll call it the Night of Allegiance. _Loyalitätsnacht_. The day that the Thousand Year Reich was saved from ultimate treachery by a soldier of the Waffen Schutzstaffel Legion of North America. The video recording of that famous speech will end up being reused for propaganda purposes, for history lessons; it will be featured every year for as long as the Reich shall live. It will be their one saving grace. Their guardian from war.

Later on down the line, that is.

The Obergruppenführer has a television set in his office. Seldom used, it sits hidden from view behind a sliding door of glass and mahogany (if you happen to look behind it, he knows, there is a compartment which contains a pair of gas masks, a medical bag and a rifle — to change the filters and provide new supplies every six months or so is one of his many unperceived duties) and after everything is said and done, after the Gruppenführer and his men trash Smith's office in an attempt to determine where the Obergruppenführer went and when, after they beat him down in retaliation for standing down the Savannah operation, Sturmbannführer Erich Raeder groans, chokes through what he thinks is a broken nose, and switches it on to the official channel.

In the heat of the moment, of course, nothing happens right away. Erich is familiar with the Reich's Ministry of Propaganda in the sense that he works and lives right under the thumb of it; he knows that if there are no scheduled news bulletins then something is coming up, that if there is a mandatory viewing then it's imminent. When five o'clock drags on and nothing happens, when _American Reich_ turns over to _What's Your Game?_ without the customary twenty minutes of regular news updates, Erich knows.

In that time, he's concluded that his nose isn't broken. A cursory inspection of the scars along his abdomen, chest and shoulder revealed that, while he's going to be in a lot of pain in the next couple of days, he hasn't been seriously injured. So he removes his ruined uniform jacket, painstakingly pulling off each pin and ribbon, and uses the dark silver-lined fabric to mop up the mess he left behind from the assault.

There wasn't much, but Erich has his... obligations. Everything needs to be immaculate. Unsoiled.

Once the blood and spit is wiped away from the marble, Erich turns his attention to the rest of Obergruppenführer Smith's office. He collects the papers strewn around and reorders them accordingly, files them back where they belong; reports going back on to the desk in an ordered stack. The folders back into the cabinet. The files into the drawer. Then he sets the furniture right, stands the chairs back up, shoves back the desk that had been knocked at an angle, fixes the various decorations and mementoes and adjusts the statues that have been jostled.

The series of decanters awarded from Berlin are a lost hope. Erich gawks at the scatter of broken glass, the fingers of each hand flexing in upset before he tosses his thoroughly ruined jacket to the floor again with a grimace, using the tip of his boot to push the debris along and out of the door so he doesn't have to use his hands.

He's rounding the desk to tackle the box of medals the Obergruppenführer keeps under a series of heavy Japanese teacups when Erich notices that the photographs on the desk have been knocked off as well. That it wasn't just the glass from the decanters, but the frames as well.

Such is an unspeakable act of malfeasance. Erich, who is always conscious of the Obergruppenführer's particular sensitivities, very nearly recoils at the sight of them.

Most had broken with the fall. The glass covering the family photo is entirely ruined. Mrs Smith's portrait is salvageable, he supposes though it would need a new frame. Erich picks them up and flattens his mouth in deep displeasure when he notices that the one picture with Smith shaking hands with the Führer remained in place, untouched.

Keller. He scowls. _Scheißdreck_.

Still. He can fix this.

He sets them straight, safe for the time being, and then he decides he'll get the whole lot of them replaced before the Obergruppenführer returns from Berlin.

That can either be tomorrow or next week, depending on what is going on. More than enough time.

It doesn't take long for everyone to find out, at any rate. Erich fetches a new jacket from his own office and returns to re-attach the decorations, the awards and rank and rid himself of the ruined uniform completely when the screen changes abruptly to show the inside of the Volkshalle back in Berlin. Erich blinks at it, uncomprehending, brain struggling to remember the significance of the People's Hall after years of absence.

Then it clicks. The war. The Führer. Raeder turns at once and strides across the room to shut the doors.

He can count the times that the Volkshalle had been used for unscheduled special ceremonies on one hand. Last time it happened, the war had been won. Erich had just turned twenty at the time, under house arrest, and he remembered most of it clearly.

(_he can't remember the specifics; he had to find a recording to recall the speech itself, but Erich did remember the fanfare, the celebration; a sea of red flags outside the windows, a crowd of people screaming with false cheer. He also remembered the fact that his father was still imprisoned in Germany and his mother couldn’t stop crying_. )

All of the televisions inside the American Schutzstaffel’s headquarters are German feed, except for the Obergruppenführer’s personal screen — which was translated for his ease but neglected, for the Obergruppenführer usually refraines from watching TV at all. He claims that it was a lazy habit, preferred second-hand translation from his aides. Localization, as it were. It was one of Lawrence and Erich’s most frequent secondary roles; to provide simultaneous and written interpretation when the Obergruppenführer was faced with lengthy reports, or stubbornly refused to use the English feed.

Personally, Erich has the suspicion that it's a ruse. That the Obergrupenführer leans a little bit harder on his Americanisms, his so-called ineptness for spoken German so that he remains distinct from the rest of High Command.

That, or he gets a kick out of making Erich translate his paperwork.

Fluent or no, however, what Erich hears is enough to make him squirm, to make him wonder if he was hearing things. Seeing things. If he wasn't, he wished he was.

It wasn't the Japanese, Himmler cries, but traitors within the Reich itself. Observing the objection of thousands upon thousands of televised spectators, Erich stands in stunned silence as they are informed that Martin Heusmann was the man to blame, that the Reich had been betrayed. The Führer was poisoned not by enemies but by once-national comrades. Traitors to the Reich.

It's a lot to take in at once. Erich knew already about the web of treason spanning from Heusmann and Oberstgruppenführer Heydrich. He knew about Connolly and his connection to the Semites. He'd shot Heydrich personally (it doesn't make the three bullets any more worth it — it never will) and having long since been moved onto the investigation instead of resuming his active duty position, he thought he knew. He'd overseen that file himself; typed out each individual word in English personally, named names and developed photographs on his own time. And yet, Erich was still, somehow, surprised to see that it was all real.

The idea of the system being defiled in such a manner left something in his gut-clenching, formed an itch between his shoulder blades that made him want to turn around, check his six.

And Heusmann...

Erich glances toward the doors.

_ Keller_.

He reaches over, keeping one eye on the screen, and grabs the phone. At his request, he could get a direct line to Berlin but couldn't get into contact with the Obergruppenführer. He tries twice, but there was nothing they could do; he was there, they inform him, but away from a line for... Some reason. In an uncharacteristic moment of floundering panic, he tries the local office of the Generaladmiral for the American Kriegsmarine over in Norfolk. Nobody even picks up the line.

Erich tries again, but after five seconds of no response, disconnects and phones downstairs for Lawrence.

Who, much to his relief, picks up on the other side almost immediately.

“Obergruppenführer?”

"It's Raeder."

Erich is about to ask about the status of Gruppenführer when he turns to the screen and, as the camera pans away, realises why it is that the Obergruppenführer couldn't get to a phone. At the very sight of it, of him, stood there wide-eyed in aftershock, Erich's mouth drops open and the question forming on his lips dies. Judging by the sudden exhale from Lawrence downstairs, he was looking at the television too.

After a long moment of mutual astonishment where neither of them speak, Erich tightens his grip on the handset and runs his other hand over his mouth.

"I... Gruppenführer Keller, where is he?"

On-screen, the Obergruppenführer is named by Himmler himself.

"He's in the senior staff room, with the others. They're watching everything." Lawrence's voice is quieter, and judging by the effect of his words, the harshness, his mouth was pressed up against the receiver in an attempt to attempt some form of privacy. "Why, what happened? What did they do?"

"They did enough," Erich replies easily, even as his ribs screamed in pain with the reminder. He wasn't sure what he could say; couldn't remember if this particular phone was recorded or not. He could feel the beginnings of a headache. What should be easy, long remembered information was suddenly very hard to recall.

So he relaxes, composes himself. There were ways to get around things as simple as a tapped wire, after all.

"Remember when one's duty to the Fatherland was to just smile through a bloody nose?" He asks, casually as he could. Lawrence was another one of Erich's kind. He'd understand the meaning. He had to. 

There was a fair number of them in this headquarters alone; it was easier to find them in places like this, the scattering of displaced sort-of-no-longer-Americans who all found themselves gravitating to officers like the Obergruppenführer, who were half-familiar and nostalgic enough in their actions, their mannerisms, their values, to find a shred sacred familiarity in the face of all this new, foreign order. The last generation of young men and woman who grew up knowing the Old Country, who were moulded by the American Reich in it's earliest form but not _defined_ by it. 

Because they were young, yes. Young enough to become what the Reich needed them to be, knights of the Fatherland, united under National Socialism and the loyal character of their shared lineage. They were the first of the American Hitler Youth, the first of the SS Recruits. Back then, it wasn't war, to them; there was no sacrifice, that was supposed to be on their parents. Things were supposed to change.

But that's how people grow up, isn't it? Erich and Lawrence, Volkheimer and, hell, even Joe Blake. They knew what they'd lost, but they all realised what else there was to loose. Who despite knowing the song and dance by heart - despite having drunk down all the dogma and breathed in all the doctrine, still found themselves slipping up, missing what they'd lost because they still _remember_, God damn it. Half in and half out and careful, ever so careful because of it.

Boys and girls who where something, a long time ago, and forced to become something else. Who was told, _promised_, that it'd be over, that things would finally change, and grew up to find themselves part of the lie.

And he was right, in that instance. Lawrence is only three years younger than Erich. He does not laugh, but he lets out a breath, slow and deliberate. He understood.

"As soon as you are able, get into contact with the Obergruppenführer. Transfer the call to my office. Keep calling."

"Sir."

Erich sets the receiver down.

_ Das Reich dankt Ihnen!_

_ Das Reich grüßt Sie!_

When the Obergruppenführer climbs up onto the podium, Erich stands and straightens his shoulders. Even though there nobody was around for him to appease, that while there were many microphones situated around the office, there were no cameras, that he was alone in the cold marble office on the other side of the Atlantic, he still salutes along with the great hall of Volkshalle.

"Seig Heil," Erich mutters and drops his arm when on the television screen, John Smith does the same.  
  


Keller and his men do not surrender, at least, not outright.

They are all armed and to surrender is to concede to a fate worse than death. Erich understands their decision, even if it is utterly futile, for the office in its entirety vastly outnumbered Keller’s own attending personnel — and while the Gruppenführer and his ilk may be committed, it cuts no ice against the degree of devotion that New York Sicherheitsdienst Office gives Obergruppenführer Smith.

They are outnumbered, outgunned, outmoralized.

And outmanoeuvred, for Erich and the rest of the New York personnel know this building by heart, floor by floor, secrets and all. This is _their _ territory. 

So when they do not give in, when ten minutes pass after the broadcast and there is no word, no offer of surrender, Erich admits to a bitter, small defeat. He travels to his office and uses his personal telephone to order for the resident Sonderkommando garrison. He hopes that a show of force will encourage them to give in. In an ideal world, they would not have to fight one another; they are comrades after all, but that was the problem with loyalty, he supposes. In this case, not to which Führer they fall behind, but to which direct officer.

To who they owe the most.

Erich turns his head to look out the window when he hears at least a two dozen or so gunshots. It's muted gunfire; semi-automatic MP40s. It is not a sound he usually associates with this environment and it so unsettles him, makes him seize up and clench his back molars together until his jaw begins to hurt.

Violence is the highest possible value; conventional morality is a hindrance to achieving victory. It's been hammered into his head since the moment the SS first got their hands on him as a teenager. He should not flinch at the thought of combat (and he usually doesn't; Erich has four separate awards and enough medals to prove it) but as he stands in his office, amongst his things, looking out of a window at a brilliant blue sky, all he can think about is a narrow alleyway, the edge of burning pain and fear muted by the roar of gunfire, the sensation of drowning in something thicker than water, the desperate need to _act_.

The Obergruppenführer. The Obergruppenführer. Obergruppenführer Smith, weaving between the open car door and the boxes, running out of ammunition. Erich, dying, reaching for his own pistol because — live faithfully, fight bravely and die laughing, though it's hard to laugh at anything when you are haemorrhaging blood through your windpipe. When death is rattling your bones, frying your nerve endings, seeping inside you cold and foreboding yet all you can think about is_ save your superior, your god, your master (the man you owe the most) save him, save him save him save him_-

With one hand hovering over the telephone and the other wrapped around the backside of his handgun, Reader thinks about calling reinforcements, about making preparations for sending remains home; reports and letters of deepest condolences, but his hands aren't cooperating. His headache is getting worse. There is a dark spot in his vision that won't go away. It's cold, too cold but he's flushed, like he's been running. Running. Erich feels his pulse in his throat, hammering away.

He can't think. Maybe Keller's men did a number on him after all. Or maybe he hasn't been sleeping properly. Doctor Adler had warned him about that, hadn't he?

The bullets stop firing. Erich doesn't look away from the window but some part of him senses the change in the building — the shift from intense action to nothing. Erie uncertain calm. A deep silence. He blinks but doesn't really recognise anything.

Then he is abruptly startled by two sharp raps of knuckles against the door. Erich doesn't realise he's holding his breath, or that he's sweating, until Major Klemm pokes his head through the open space.

"Keller chose death by his own hand." The Major says, looking excited and disappointed in one tense, hysterical expression. "His core personnel chose to fight, but we easily quelled them. Four of them surrendered."

Sturmbannführer Reader is not surprised. He forces out the breath he was holding in.

"Any casualties on our side?" Lawrence shook his head. "And the others back in Queens?"

"Also surrendered to our authority. They claim to not know whom Keller was operating for." Major Klemm stepped inside, just beyond the threshold. Unlike Erich, Lawrence was still impeccable in appearance. The Sturmbannführer found it comforting, a familiar anchor of order in a raging sea of disorder and while he doesn’t mean to stare, he can't make himself look away, either. "It appears that all of the direct traitors were on the Gruppenführer's hip. The remaining forces at the barracks, they appear to know nothing. Appear, anyway."

Erich weighed the possibilities in his mind and then decided it did not matter if they did know or not — Keller was, or had been, Berlin's. His men would fall under the same jurisdiction. It was not their place. It especially wasn’t Erich's.

If anything, he is thankful that Keller had the foresight to leave the bulk of his forces off-site. He is not sure he'd be able to look the Obergruppenführer in the eyes ever again if half of their top command had been slaughtered while he was away.

"They'll be recalled back to Berlin." Erich lets his hand slip free from his holster but still allows for the fingers of his other hand to remain to against the telephone headset. "If I'm wrong, then the Obergruppenführer can send them back on his authority."

Though, saying that, he did not know how long it would take for them to get orders from Berlin, or how long it would be before they could get into contact with the Obergruppenführer. They had the resources, he supposed, to handle another an extra Standarte if they needed too, but the sooner they were back where they belonged, the better.

He did not like it, this wide, empty space of no communication. He has the awful feeling that every independent decision he makes is the wrong one.

God, he thought, he had been in command for maybe a mere twenty minutes and he was already spent. Erich was not certain that he could handle the next few hours — let alone days, he was too disorientated, too unbalanced. Where was the _control _?He was supposed to be better than this.

Erich inhaled hard again, ignoring the stabs of displeasure from his uppermost two scars and rubs his face, hard. Enough that the skin stretches and the muscles in his forehead and cheeks relax. Then he leans against his desk, palms spread apart and arms straight. He breathes, and he tries to think and he grounds himself.

_ Steady, Erich_. 

Deal with the immediate concerns, first. He can fret over everything else later.

Easier said than done, but he has to try.

"With Standarterführer Ross in the NZ with General Whitcroft I will formally assume command from here." Lawrence nodded, accepting; Ross never assumed command in the Obergruppenführer's absence and while Whitcroft was his natural successor, they operated in their own way here. The New York Sicherheitsdienst Office went to Erich because he was the Obergruppenführer's oldest and most capable protégé. The so-called Left Hand. The one who had been moulded enough in the man's image to operate on his behalf even in the event of no-communication. Yet while things worked differently here, the hierarchy had to be observed and at least half way respected.

After all, Keller had been an exception to their admittedly warped interpretation of the rule, and now he was dead.

"Send all non-essential staff home, lockdown all of the secure departments aside from A and D to F. Have someone deal with the bodies… and the men who surrendered, seize their weapons and return them to the barracks. Make them comfortable. Draw out double rations; food, alcohol and tobacco. They made the correct decision and their continued loyalty to the Reich should be rewarded."

"Alright," Lawrence nodded. "And after that?"

"No signals in or out unless it's for or from Berlin." Erich thought back to general homeland security after the War was won for the last time. He wasn't in uniform back then, of course, but he'd have to try and apply what he remembered to what he understands now, in his current role; it's the only frame of reference outside of SD handbooks he has. "Have the State Police on alert, heighten the usual presence on the streets, the checkpoints. Shut down the main highways and roads directly out of the city — we're on a mandatory curfew but I wouldn’t put it past the Resistance to try something."

He wouldn't, but some part of him hopes that they would just stay quiet, at least for tonight. He did not want to have to even _consider_ something like Savannah ever again.

"It would be deeply stupid of them to try." Lawrence was not thinking about their infrastructure crippling itself in a panic of a narrowly missed war; he was a soldier, after all. As he looks at the Sturmbannführer's face, he must recognise the expression of discomfort Erich is trying very hard to not show, for he smiles — that aggressive little smirk-sneer. "But of course, naturally. We will be prepared."

"That's all we can be at the moment." Erich sighs. "Thank you, Lawr-"

Surprise is not an emotion Erich has ever taken well. When his office phone rings, for Erich, it might as well have exploded.

Ever since the ambush any sudden rattling noises like phones, like engines, had started digging under his skin in a way they hadn't before. He'd kept it under control for the most part; disguising flinches in larger, deliberate movements and keeping his right hand, which still tended to shake, firmly in the grasp of his left — but between the pain and the nerves, coupled with the sudden surprise and the visceral memories of screeching tires and machine-gun fire, Erich never stood a chance.

In his half-instinctual retaliatory recoil he ends up slapping the handset off the base of the telephone and must scramble across the desk to catch it, knuckles slamming against the desk. Lawrence raises both of his eyebrows as if to say, _Really?_

Erich hisses a particularly colourful expletive under his breath, giving Lawrence his short, sharp, _don't you say a fucking word_, stare. Then he answers, his tone flat and carefully neutral with: "Raeder."

The voice on the other end of the call is an incomprehensible stream of distress. For a few bewildering seconds, Erich wasn't able to understand a word of what they were saying until he glanced at the carrier lookup; the little black machine in which identified phone numbers and recognised the first five digits.

It's the Smith residence.

In a combination he did not think possible, Erich felt his stomach plummet into emptiness and drag downward with weight at the same time. He glances up at Lawrence, whose expression had changed completely into blank, carefully controlled concern.

"Helen," Erich takes his fellow Major's example and tries to force calm. He's not sure if he succeeds or not. "What's wrong?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aand here we are, the beginnings of this... entire rewrite of season three and then some.
> 
> some liberties are going to be taken with the timeline and overall pacing; things in the show are going to happen slower than they have in the TV series, mostly so I have an excuse to have various characters interact. Obviously, this is going to be considered WIDLY AU by the time I get a few chapters in, but for the most part, I am going to try to work hand in hand with the wider direction of the show. Maaaybe. 
> 
> BIG Thanks goes out to Ste, the original writer of [Der Gute Kamerad](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11234094/chapters/25106631#workskin), who not only gave me many, many of his original notes, but also was willing to sit down with me, watch S3 and generally just talk endlessly while also being incredibly busy <3


	2. Professional Larceny

**COLOGNE** **  
** **Greater Germanic Reich - Summer - 1956**

The Rhine promenade in the Old Town was a magnificent sight at this time of year; tidy streets shaded by neat, recently planted trees before a wide blue river, bordered by a panorama of picturesque gothic buildings. Sat out on one of the balconies attached to the recently refurbished Ausland-SD local office, Obergruppenführer John Smith contemplated the quaint summer atmosphere with a glass of schnapps in one hand and an unlit cigarette in the other. It's quiet at this time in the evening, the summer heat burning off into a pleasant breeze. 

But the Obergruppenführer is not here to wax lyrical about the Fatherland and it's charming cobbled streets, not quite. 

He's here to commit professional larceny.

"Hauptsturmführer Raeder?" Standartenführer Koff was a wide set German with a balding crop of blonde hair and an exemplary grasp of English. "No, nobody's put in for him yet, but I only authorised his entry onto the transfer list recently."

The man lit John's cigarette in an idle act of courtesy, then his own. When he sat down, he made an exaggerated noise of discomfort. 

"Hell-" He spoke between drags, arm flopping down against the balcony railing, figures gesturing towards the city skyline. "-I'm surprised he's still here. Good little Volksdeutscher with connections like that, I'd thought Berlin would snap him up."

Obergruppenführer Smith glanced at Koff's face, then turned his attention to his drink. "Tell me what he’s like."

"Eh, good enough. Quiet. We get a lot of younger ones here; crème de la crème of the iron generation from outside Berlin, all starting their new careers in the SD. They usually move onto the main office after a while. Lucky break for him, that we realised how good he was, or he'd be in a Waffen unit up in Russia, no doubt."

"Raeder is American. He fall in with that group?"

"Oh, I'd say so. NEPA is hardly something to pass over. Though I thought it was a joke at first, you know, with the name and all." Koff drank when Smith did, then drank some more. "Smart lad, so when we saved him from a life of obscurity in Bohemia, I put him with a team of agents fingering out bandits — working with the Sturmabteilung to root out American soldiers infiltrating the labour force, preventing any organised violence against the Reich. He quickly outgrew that."

Smith frowned. "Outgrew it?"

"Got bored, I'd say. A lot of the younger officers like the chase, I suppose. The thrill of the hunt, is that what you call it? Raeder is a little more sedate."

"So he's soft."

"I wouldn't go that far," Koff's smile was polite. "He's still SS, after all. A year with the Panzergrenadiertruppe. Several confirmed kills; saw combat in Moravia when on the hunt for communists... Streetwalking is not his area. I gave him a position in intelligence when he was promoted, information handling, for the most part. He seemed a fair bit happier."

"Can he handle an investigation?"

“Oh ja, independently and with a team. He's still American, so the latter tends to be a bit... awkward, history and all, but we're professionals, Obergruppenführer. We make do."

Smith glanced at Koff over the top of his cigarette, then redirected his gaze back out towards the Rhine. "Fair enough. Tell me the worst of it."

"Too patient."

"Too patient?"

"The Reich likes an obvious go-getter; it's an attractive look of the times. Raeder is hard to get a reaction out of. Polite, sure, but quiet. Inoffensive, maybe I'll even go as far as to say a pushover. If I didn't know him any better I'd think him a bit of a dope."

"But he is intelligent." Smith decided.

"I'd say so. Very cunning when he elects to make his own decisions — he just doesn't," the Standartenführer grunted. "He doesn't exactly excel on paper as a result, as you can imagine."

"Not necessarily a fault, Koff."

Koff shrugged in response. "Maybe, what else? Shy, I think. Doesn't go out of his way to spend time with the other officers. Maybe it's because of the culture barrier, maybe not. I stopped trying to get to know him when it was clear I was only making him uncomfortable. Spent a lot of time with a group of personnel over the last two years or so, drinking mostly, but that's soldier-bonding and the accommodation here is dormitory. He'd have to go out of his way to avoid them otherwise."

"Does he?" Smith frowned.

Koff made a shrugging gesture, as if to say 'either way'. "He's here to work. Good work ethic, very good, but he doesn't make... friends. He networks. I think he puts up with them, more than anything. He's been here eight years, you know. He's one of the oldest. They look up to him."

"I assume there's something else."

"Oh, he's... politically imperilled."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Smith was genuinely perplexed. 

"His name is _Erich Raeder_. " Koff laughed, in disbelief, as if he was surprised that John even had to ask. "It's a good thing they never put him into internal intelligence because he'd stick out like a sore thumb unless he had an alias. American man with the name of a renowned war leader? Bitte. Poor bastard never stood a chance."

He had a point, Smith supposed. "Let me ask you one last question. If I was to transfer him to New York, would it be acceptable to your superiors?"

Koff did not reply straight away. Instead, he puffed on the end of his cigarette until it began to smoulder near his fingers. 

"He's a good officer," The Standartenführer said eventually, putting the cigarette out by grinding it into the balcony, which he then flicked mindlessly over to the street below. "But he doesn't belong here, despite what RuSHA thinks. He's coasting. He could do with belonging somewhere."

"So I take it you approve?"

"Approve of what?" Koff raised both of his eyebrows. "You haven’t requested anything yet."

Smith stubbed his cigarette out into the nearby ashtray and drained the rest of his drink. 

"That's right." He shot back. "I haven't."

* * *


	3. Meine Ehre Heisst Treue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings Specifically For:  
\- Mentions of bullshit nazi eugenics practices  
\- Mild mentions of PTSD symptoms.

To get to the Smith residence on Roxboro, Erich Raeder takes his personal car on account of supreme lack of hindsight. 

Responding to an emergency in a sports coupe might not be the height of professionalism, but Erich had a soft spot for cars. That morning, instead of the Volkswagen, the mass-produced saloon issued to any American Riech citizens whose careers deemed them significant enough for private transportation, he had elected to take his own car in a rare bout of semi-restricted freedom. He wasn't the only one. Countless Americans still prefer their own vehicles from before the war to this day. He did, his friends in the SS did, John Smith did.

Yet there was one significant improvement in the government-issued car. _One_ little thing that made all of its limitations and tragic design flaws worth it.

The SS runes on the end of his licence plates. They designate his work car as a law enforcement emergency vehicle and they permit him to break traffic laws whenever necessary. 

In Erich's case, this unique exemption of the law is only really utilised when he is late for work, and barely even then. On the occasion he rides with the Obergruppenführer, they travel as inconspicuously as possible in a car void of all markings, to stop them (supposedly) becoming a target. This, driving in a green Alfa Romeo 6C at breakneck speeds while the city is under lockdown is far cry from _inconspicuous_. So much so that Erich's usual inclination for modesty winces when he breaks the speed limit — and then proceeds to shrivel up in horror when he only accelerates from there.

The Sturmbannführer half expects to either get pulled over or chased, most certainly written up by traffic enforcement, but at this moment he cares little for the consequences. He has bigger problems than a speeding ticket he can probably get out of.

Erich did not have all of the details, it was hard to get any additional information over the phone, but he hardly needed it. He had enough of a reason to act. 

Anything to do with the Obergruppenführer's family was enough. Too much.

_ They took Thomas!_

Helen's hysterical wail of pure unbridled anguish reiterates itself over and over again in his head, making his headache over a tenfold worse.

Objectively, he knows that he cannot make assumptions. Erich has to be rational and rely on the facts so that he can approach the situation as evenhandedly as possible, he is an intelligence officer and must operate equitably but even he cannot help to make the occasional assumption. As he speeds along Long Island's abandoned streets, gripping the steering wheel with enough force to make his wrists tremble, he thinks of every possibility he can think of, from the mundane to the horrible.

_Who_ could have taken possibly Thomas Smith is his first question. The Smith's residence was protected and the children's movements shadowed. He knows of the usual suspects, of course. Resistance terrorists and Semite operators. How they could have got into the Long Island community if that is the case he did not know. But what about the others? Helen and the girls? Mrs. Smith did not mention any other kidnappings, just Thomas. _They took Thomas_. 

Which brings him to the possibility that it might not be the Resistance at all. There were other enemies out there, after all. Enemies in the party. 

Erich knows to never, ever even entertain the possibility in public, but he knows. Heydrich and Heusmann, big leagues who stood behind the Führer rubbing their hands together, waiting for the day they could seize control. Erich had been warned about Heydrich since the moment he made it into the SS. Not just Heydrich either; Goebbels, Himmler. Anyone who could gain from murder, who would step on the corpse of a competing officer.

_ Meine Ehre Heisst Treue _they might pledge, but Erich knows better than to turn his back. Especially since their daggers tend to bear the same oath.

Three bullets, five blood transfusions. Three months and seventeen days in hospital. Erich may not have paid the ultimate price for another man's treachery, but he's certainly experienced enough of it to leave an impression.

Of course, it might not even be Berlin. North America had its fair share of political rivalries. There were officers in the Canadian Reichskommissariat who still had loyalties to the old country; officers in their own backyard, even. And then there were the men on the opposite end of the scale who tried to curry favour with Europe. Reichsmarschall Rockwell, according to his father, supposedly had quite the objection to Obergruppenführer Smith.

It was all well and good when the Obergruppenführer only had New York to concern himself with, but this business with the Man in the High Castle and Heydrich had propelled him into the spotlight. His actions had rocketed across the American Reich, spoke of impeccable leadership and military might, where Rockwell had yet to do anything of considerable worth in the past five years.

That was another thing that Erich was never, ever supposed to mention in public.

Meine Ehre Heisst Treue and all that.

As he makes a left turn, the Sturmbannführer thinks that particular nugget over. Surely if it was Rockwell or any other American officer with a grudge, why would they act so soon? Unless of course, their plans were in the motions for a while — which could very be a possibility, though Erich is not entirely sure — and this was simply the triggering point. But in that case, why Thomas? Why not the whole family? Why not his dear wife, whom John Smith loved so much, and publicly?

Why the boy? Especially given how weird the Obergruppenführer and his recent requests had been over the last few months.

Erich knows there was... something up with John and Helen's oldest child. He isn't an extraordinary genius by any means, but he had an eye for detail and his memory was sharp. The trip to Buenos Aires, the payments to the Bandits to engage in covert kidnappings, special arrangements for a small, isolated home to be constructed in the mountainside. Smith had not told Erich who such arrangements were specifically for, but it had to be connected.

Before, Erich decided to not settle on the details because it wasn't his place, but now, every little odd or weird request from the Obergruppenführer came flooding back at once. He struggles to make sense of it all.

Well, he will find out soon enough. As Erich pulls onto Roxboro road, he could spot the small, barely out of sight guardhouse. 

He does not bother to stop for the guards; he was coming in too fast and they would want to check his identification. Erich did not have the time, either for them to check his face against an ID or to explain why he was doing 40 in a 25 zone.

Instead, he reaches into his jacket pocket, the inner one, grabs his ID and the second he reaches the checkpoint, as the black-uniformed guard reaches his arm out to call the car to a halt-  
  
Erich reaches his own arm out through the open window and slaps his ID into the man's hand.

He doesn't stop. his car speeds past the waiting soldiers, the main gate guard flinching away from the moving vehicle while his two comrades ready their rifles. In the moments between pressing down on the brake pedal and looking into the rearview mirror, Erich expects to be shot at; for bullets to come blasting through two sets of windscreen glass, but there is nothing.

No shooting, no high-powered roar of machine-gun fire; no bark of a rifle. Nothing but the rumble of the engine and the sound of the wind tearing past the open window. He counts the heartbeats he can feel pounding inside his throat, from three to six to nine to twelve- eighteen, twenty-six.

And nothing.

The guards do not come around the bend as he makes a turn. The road behind him remains empty and unassuming. Cars are parked neatly against clean sidewalks, edged by tidy hedges before smart, expensive houses. There are no panicked civilians ducking from gunfire, no frenzied SS troopers chasing behind him. Just the quiet orderly neighbourhood Sippengemeinschaft.

Erich snaps his head around to look back at the road ahead. Then nearly shouts aloud in pent up tension. 

He manages not to. Instead, he decided to slam both fists into the steering wheel, forcing out the breath he was holding in one sharp exhale before inhaling again hard. _You fucking idiot!_ screams through his head just as _that was fucking fantastic!_ interrupts and in the sudden chaos and excitement, Erich, much to his surprise, does it again. He hits the steering wheel with a solid one-two-one, left hand leading and hammering with the flat of his metacarpals as opposed to all four knuckles, instinctual pugilism long since drilled into muscle memory coming back at once. 

It is very nearly too much and knows what he needs to do, but there is no time. He's getting _overexcited_. The harmless code-word given to frenzied soldiers on the brink of losing it. Erich needs to stand off somewhere dim and cool and breathe. He needs to stop, count doubles in his head until the math failed him, but mostly just to _breathe_. 

He needs to, but the Obergruppenführer's residence was right there. Before he can make himself stop, to stand aside and regain control of himself, he's parking the car. He's wrenching the car door open and slipping his good hand around his handgun. He's advancing up the pathway along the front garden in seven long strides, clambering up the patio and twisting the door handle, barging it open with his shoulder. He's ignoring the pain. He's checking corners and glancing at his six.

The hallway was clear. It's also dim, cold and empty. Erich doesn't like the way the sound travelled, the way his footsteps echo. 

He takes another tentative two steps into the house, pauses for a moment and then says somewhere between a call and a shout. "Helen!" 

In answer, something clatters upstairs. Erich cranes his neck up and catches a slip of pale skin, brown hair and tartan dress. 

Recognition is instant.

"Uncle Erich!"

Before he can say anything, John and Helen's youngest, Amy, withdraws from the upstairs landing where she was hiding and rushes down the stairs. Erich barely has enough time to slide his handgun back into his holster and push it away from the child before she's on him, wrapping two skinny arms around his waist. 

Jennifer floats down the stairs after her.

"It's Sturmbannführer Raeder." She says, deploringly at her younger sister, eyes too much like her father's flicking down to his handgun and then back up at his face. "Mother told us to stay upstairs."

Erich turns his head away from Amy to Jennifer. "Your mother phoned." He says in the way of explanation. "Where is she now?"

"Mommy is trying to phone father about Thomas," Amy replies instead, matter of fact. Erich sets his free hand onto the top of her head, acknowledging her input nonverbally, and raises both of his eyebrows at Jennifer.

"She's in Father's office." Years of being taught proper etiquette by her Mrs. Smith hadn't quite quenched the way she nervously tugs at the hem of her skirt. Erich doesn't blame the poor thing and therefore elects to not draw attention to it. "Someone took Thomas away and we don't know where."

Smith's eldest daughter's nervous mannerisms pass on to Erich. As he glances in the direction of the Obergruppenführer's office, he drags his incisor against his bottom lip. 

"Well that is why I'm here," he says, eventually, feigning confidence. He had to be the solid one for these two girls, if nothing else. "To find out and get him back home safe."

He had no idea when he became familiar enough to these children to warrant familial friendship. Six years seemed as long as a lifetime and as fleeting as a single day at the same time, but here it was, creeping up on him until it was too late. Erich sets his hands onto Amy's shoulders, squeezes down gently and makes one curious sweep around the bottom floor that he could see. What would John have done in this situation? He wonders. Erich did not have any children of his own, nor any close relatives of similar age. His experience with children tended to range no further than those of his coworker's and the occasional Hitler Youth visit where he was required to shadow the Obergruppenführer. 

In that case, what would his mother do? She wouldn't just send them upstairs to their own devices. He thinks back to the last serious situation they'd suffered, but all he can think about is the long painful months of his father's continued custody in Germany before he defected to the Reich and secured their relative safety. Then, it hits him. A time-old tradition that came along with unexpected phone calls, visits and letters.

"Why don't you go make your mother some tea?" He suggests. Erich is not entirely sure if Amy and Jennifer were allowed near a kitchen heat source on their own yet, but he supposes, right now, Helen wouldn't be in any place to dictate. If she has an objection he'll hold his hands up later on and take it like a man. "I'll see Helen now, all right?"

They do just that. Jennifer taking Amy's hand as they filter on past, still uncertain by his presence but likely feeling better now that they weren't hiding upstairs. Erich follows them on through, passing the dining table and approaching the glass door to the Obergruppenführer's office. 

It's closed, but he can see Helen's distorted reflection beyond and elects to just go for it. Erich knocks to be polite and to give her some semblance of warning as to not shock her, but it does little to quell her obvious fear. 

Helen Smith is sat at the front end of her husband's desk, not behind it. At the sound of Erich approaching, she spins around in her seat and both hands fly up to her chest, but at the sight of him, shock quickly morphs into hysterics. Erich thinks about consoling her — not overstepping boundaries by engaging in any full-on contact with another man's wife, but a kind hand on the forearm, or something. 

But it seems that the Smiths have a tendency to act before he is ready, for five tidy red nails snatch up a slip of white paper before he can even step properly inside and close the door. Helen thrusts it in his direction and Erich begins skimming the paper, perplexed, barely comprehending. When his eyes hit _Legal Termination of Inenabled Person_, he blinks in shock and goes back to the top of the sheet again.

**PARENTAL CONSENT FOR CHILD**

At that, all of Erich's prior assumptions and hastily made plans simply evaporate. As Helen looks back at him between sobs, all Sturmbannführer Raeder can do is merely look out the Obergruppenführer's office window, at the neatly trimmed hedge bordering the sweet summer sky, and let both hands drop dejectedly down to his sides.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not entirely sure if what happens next will truly align with the show's canon or not.
> 
> but for now, we'll see. 
> 
> thank you to all the folks who have left kudos on the last chapter! also, my good buddy n co-writer made a wonderful [art cover](https://campaignstripes.tumblr.com/post/186948118576/a-small-little-art-cover-for-a-man-in-the-high) for the fic!


	4. Asset

**SIX YEARS AGO**

The complete analysis of Erich Raeder's worth is contained within a strengthened manila folder of German design; over a decade in age, composed of heavy gothic print and flourished signatures of many a superior. It comprises of everything from his past to his potential future, his failures and his accomplishments, from the days before joining the Schutzstaffel and those throughout, stamped and certified with many a credible endorsement of the Reich, with a few healthy lumps of scepticism thrown in for good measure.

But, John Smith does not need nearly fifty-seven pages of performance reports and ethnic paperwork to make the full measure of a man.

Not when he has the real thing in front of him.

Erich Raeder is the perfect example of a competent SS officer through mere appearance alone, sat across from the Obergruppenführer in a fitting uniform with a tidy haircut (_diligent in appearance_, says a report from his former superior back in New York, _zero uniform penalties _) and a polite, if indecipherable, expression; a silence which goes beyond polite etiquette as far as Smith can tell (_with some discrimination_, the report continues, _due to the presence of a strongly alien and foreign accent _). He doesn't fold his legs, make any effort to become comfortable — in the twenty minutes that he has sat before John Smith he has yet to make himself at ease, but he's not tense either. He's waiting.

Which, John supposes, makes sense. It is Obergruppenführer Smith who is the outlier in this situation, sat in Koff's office, in Germany. Erich Raeder might be American, but at the moment, he belongs here more than John does.

Obergruppenführer Smith turns a page and looks back at the folder splayed across the desk, but instead of reading the contents of which he has already revised, he immediately glances up again to catch Raeder looking down and- ah, _there_ it is.

Raeder's gaze, sage green and sharper than one would expect, sweeps across the papers (_cheating during examinations_, it warns, from NEPA-Brooklyn, _bilingual, capable of reading and translating upside down_ — a soft reprimand, more bemusement than a genuine warning) and John sets his jaw, focuses on the younger officer that little bit too hard. 

It's an underhanded tactic but it's not a sneaky one. Its an underhanded chess move to control the board, build a foundation. It's something he'd expect from a soldier looking to level the battlefield.

He allows Raeder to recognise his mistake, for him to notice that John has noticed. To his credit, despite having been caught red-handed, Erich Raeder is not stupid enough to advertise any actual wrongdoing — maybe in his mind, he it isn't. Years of practice and an unnatural talent for reading people allows for John to see it; Reader very nearly winces when he notices the Obergruppenführer's expression, but it's not out of remorse but rather getting caught out.

Then he covers the gesture. The mouth twitch turns into a larger facial expression, concealed by a blink.

And just to make sure, the Obergruppenführer settles both of his hands on either side of the file. 

"Is there something wrong, Hauptsturmführer?" John asks with sharp-edged tenderness, feigning nonchalance, and savours the pure horror that Erich Raeder reveals before he masks it behind a disguise of puzzlement. It takes no more than a second, if not less. There is something endlessly fascinating about watching someone gifted in the manipulation of outward expression work, especially if they're still learning.

John lives for it, he truly does, but doesn't allow himself to get excited, not yet. 

"I-... Nothing, Obergruppenführer, sir." Raeder looks back at John, a show of deference in which is appropriate and makes an effort to correct himself, to sit a little straighter and clear his throat. The embarrassment and his confusion is suppressed but not enough; it makes him look uncoordinated, disarmingly so.

It's a masterful display of interpersonal intelligence, but while the act of a simple American may have worked on a German officer, Raeder's artificial simplicity won't work on John, who has long perfected the tactic. He obviously hasn't realised that yet.

As far as the Obergruppenführer is concerned, he never will.

But he's still nonetheless very intelligent, and that is John's main concern. Smart men can often turn into unpredictable ones, and while the Reich has a distrust of the educated mind, wary of those who are book smart, John knew from experience that was often than not the other sort that posed the most danger. The kind like Erich Raeder, who clearly screamed of advanced situational awareness but flew under the radar because his German counterparts either refused or were unable to notice. The fact that he has learned to conceal it as much utilise it suggests that Erich also knows of the danger, subconsciously or otherwise.

From deliberately making sure that John was aware of his natural American accent while quietly keeping himself unreadable, to pretending to be a lesser threat, it makes John soften to the idea of Reader but not prompt any actual interest, which puts Raeder in a position to counter-examine John in relative safety. 

(This is one of the first tests that John gives any potential protégé; sit them in a formal environment with no warning and give no reasoning, put enough emphasis on his superior rank and status so that the situation is not in their favour.

Some will outright ask, some will try to figure it out on their own and both are acceptable outcomes, depending on the subject. What he doesn't want is panic or overconfidence. Laying up the field, setting up the chess move.)

Captain Raeder doesn't want to be noticed, either as a threat or otherwise. John can see that now; he couldn't tell from the man's paperwork alone, but in person, it is starkly obvious.

It helps, John supposes, that on file there is very little _to_ notice. Raeder is ranked within the middle of everything he does. His only real impressive feat, thus far, is the rank in which he has obtained. He's seen combat, the Verwundetenabzeichen and Allgemeines Sturmabzeichen presented on his uniform all confirm it, but yet his overall reception is lukewarm, especially in the realms of higher office. The only real reason for him to stand out is his foreignness and his family, and it appears that Raeder makes to connect with such associations as little as possible.

He has been given every opportunity to advance in the Reich and yet, he's requested for transfer. For an American born German in today's political climate, this is considered a foolish decision. Ill minded. It does not speak well for any future prospects within the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or the SS itself.

The fact that Raeder is here at all...

It means one of two things, in John's own experience. One of them is bad news and the other can be worked with.

If it is indeed the latter, then John has struck the jackpot he had been wanting for a while now. John Smith has been in command for awhile now and it was long time he had proper allies. Men he could build up around him, who he could trust. Build up his house of cards, fill up his court and, one day, when Rockwell finally fucks up for good, succeed him.

Erich Raeder is not the kind of man who crosses his radar very often; skilled, talented and largely unspoiled by the drag of high command. He has no bad habits and has no good ones, either. Just instincts and base training. If he's anything like the Generaladrmial he'll be a menace in the right hands.

Really, the Obergruppenführer is not surprised that it's Erich. It feels resoundingly right. He has put tags on the entire family, the man's father being who he is, but Erich himself was too far away for him to be of any real relevance. It wasn't until his name came up on the list of potential transfers — highlighted by his liaison officer because of the tidy little _Raeder _attached to his name, that John started to consider it for real.

If Raeder is what John thinks he is, then this could be an opportunity to drastically strengthen his office, but he needs to be sure.

John studies the grown-up, clean-cut form of the seventeen and smiling character printed below. There are many photographs in Raeder's file, but that is not unusual for the Reich and it's an attachment to ethnic criterion, especially in regard to Volksdeutscher. 1945, when the Germans first invaded after they dropped the bomb, after they took Norfolk and destroyed their naval bases, family pictures - portraits from school, the kind you'd frame on a wall in the hallway, sailor-dress, a student at the Naval Academy before being called up to fight in the final slog until the surrender (_originally ostracised due to biological father's continued defiance against the Reich_ ) until at twenty-one, where his hair is darker and his teeth disappear behind the hard line of his mouth (_continued attachment to American heritage mutually beneficial_, the file notes, blandly) and after that, graduation from some SS boarding school and transfer to the Greater Reich, where it's a series of half approvals (_displays the perfect spirit of the national comrade _) and half warnings (_severe concerns as to his tendency to be swayed easily by older officers _) throughout his service with the SS. It's a consistent pattern. Approval followed by disappointment; concern followed by applause.

And that, despite Raeder's own commendable attempts, makes John intrigued. Men like that do not last long and yet, here Raeder is.

It ends with a formal report from Standartenführer Koff, and on paper, the conclusion is that Erich Raeder is an agreeable, respectable young officer with prospects, but those prospects are yet to be identified, other than he possesses the rudimentary intelligence to do whatever it is that requires doing. John Smith looks back at Erich Raeder himself, sees time and energy and commitment, and he concludes that here, sat before him, is partner ready to be made, an associate ready to be influenced; an ally.

Raeder accepts his transfer to Sturmbannführer of the North American Schutzstaffel with a slight curve of the lips and a healthy dose of ambivalence — but when he speaks of his gratitude to Obergruppenführer Smith, he does so sincerely.

(_a dangerous longing for approval_, warns in writing)

John Smith is counting on it.


	5. Unwahrheit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well this took forever. 
> 
> No excuses on my part but lack of time and lack of drive. And several months spent trying to figure out how to deal with Thomas. I got it figured out now, mostly, but hey - season 4 threw some interesting spanners into works.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter include!
> 
> \- References to Nazi eugenics extermination practices. Nothing in depth. There never will be, but I will forewarn such chapters regardless.  
\- Lawrence.

Here, the problem:

Within the Reich there are boundaries. Circles, if one will. Some of them expand across continents and others are as small as family units, but they are there, oftentimes overlapping, seldom separate. Spheres of influence embedded in their social and professional existence, as complex as they are many, looping in those of interest and cordoning off those who are not. They make and shape the society in which they now live, keep everyone in their place, moving in the right direction.

And Erich Raeder knew of absolutely no one in the Health Department.

It was a rather large failing on the part of a seasoned Intelligence officer, but the urgency of the situation prevents any prolonged self-disappointment in his ability to make meaningful connections. He could writhe around in failure later.

For now, he was busy.

He remains with Helen in the abandoned living room, the TV off and the curtains drawn. Erich had made precisely one phone call and it was to his mother, to ask her to pick up the Smith daughters and do — _something_ with them, anything to get them away. He could trust his mother to do this, to not ask questions. And she was every so good with children, of course.

It left Erich to try and figure out where to go from here, pacing around the Smith's living room in desperate want for a cigarette while being simultaneously repulsed by the very idea at the same time. 

In terms of his personal life, it made sense, he supposed. His family objected, although not vocally, to the Reich's obsession with so-called racial hygiene. Erich himself was annoyed with their existence from the standpoint of an unmarried SS officer, for they injected themselves into his social life and made it nearly impossible to meet people on his own approach. There was no finer mood killer than some gaunt middle-aged man from the Racial Office demanding your date's birth certificate and skull dimensions before you even got to second base. Humiliating.

They were stricter with the Americans. Or, Americans were stricter than the Germans. He feels that the Obergruppenführer had it lucky, to have married the person he loved before the war ended.

Regardless, personal grievances aside, Erich had no real reason to get involved with the Health Office, even on a professional level. There had been a minor brush after the ambush and during the sub-annual health checks, but little more, and that meant knowing his primary physician by name, rarely anyone else. He knew about them, of course; the Main Security Office worked closely with the Health Office and Erich was expected to know their laws and protocols back to front, but he, himself? He knew of no one. 

Which, now, posed a problem. Erich flipped and reflipped through the book of so-called contacts he kept alongside his regular notebook and found alarmingly little. 

And his problem went beyond not knowing someone, anyone. If he was to seek someone else who might know of a useful contact, who would he even _go_ to?

Major Klemm might know somebody, but he's handling the office, for now. There weren't many other officers Erich could trust from there and he was not sure if he had the time to go to the trouble of cross-examining his peers to find out. Captain Volkheimer might've, but the Captain was with the Berlin men and off the top of his head, Erich was also unsure as to how he'd bring it up without coming off as suspicious. Lying did not come naturally to him. Never had.

He could just go to the Health Department himself and ask, but that would give them more time to respond while he cut through the rank and file to the people responsible. 

Take the advantage in any and all ways possible. No, Erich needed to go in fast and hard, find the source, find the boy and get it finished before word could get out to the upper file, which it would, sooner rather than later. Erich folds his arms as he paces and turns around to face Helen Smith, who was sitting on the sofa in a state of dulled distress. That silent, empty-eyed horror after being ruthlessly pulled apart, your soul emptied out, where there was nothing left, nothing to do but shut down.

Aftershock. Erich feels bad. He should have got his mother to help her, too. 

But he needs her. He needs her to help him, so he can help them. 

"Helen," Erich kneels down before her on the carpet and touches her forearm. She stirs, for a moment looking hopeful, but then she recognises his face and her eyes turn flat. It is not the sort of thing he'd ever imagine to see on Helen Smith's face — usually so dignified, so resolute. The other half of the New York power couple that is the Smiths, queen of their little Long Island Sippengemeinschaft. It unsettles him, but Reader cannot be swayed by sentiment right now. It's awful, all of it is awful, but-

They dealt in awful, and he had a job to do.

"Back before, after... Dr. Adler... Was he the one who..?"

Erich knew that the Obergruppenführer killed the man. Erich was... well qualified... when it came to cleaning up John Smith's messes, mistake or deliberate. Question was, did Helen know and for why?

It was one of the first things John had pressed upon Erich all those years ago. Get a woman in your corner. Granted, he hadn't been the only one — Erich had heard it from doctors and so-called experts and peers and friends and parents alike; the SS was obsessed with it, but he knew it was a losing battle. He knew the statistics, too. Half of its members were still unmarried. They demand they marry only out of love of devotion but demand that they work six day weeks at the same time. It was incompatible. Erich had brushed off the man's comments at the time because, well.

But now, he sees it in another light. Someone on your side. Someone you could trust with your life. How much could he say that of his comrades, really? John and Helen had acted together in various small incidents in the past — he'd heard about the Joe Blake and the Colonel Wegener incident in _great _ detail from Lawrence. Experienced it first hand whenever the man and his wife decided to intrude in his life personally. They were a team, through and through.

Helen nodded, tears welling and Erich gave her forearm another squeeze. Wordless confirmation, but a confirmation nonetheless. 

And it _was_ something. If Dr. Adler had known, had been ready to do something, he might have finished a report already. Or he'd have contacts.

Problem was, it was several weeks since the man's death, and Erich is not entirely certain that his office was untouched. He knew that the Obergruppenführer had quietly ordered the man's office to remain uncompromised, citing security concerns, but it had been days since then and he had it on good authority that his wife had been around, to look for _answers_. They'd put it down to the hysterics of a woman who'd just so suddenly lost her husband, but they knew that she knew. Turns out, Alice Adler knew more about her husband's work than they she'd originally let on.

And that was assuming Dr. Adler had the details of his... responsibilities... in his office. There was protocol, of course, but Erich needed the specifics. Locations, offices. If Thomas had phoned on the regular line, been connected to a local office, what hospital would they take him to? Would they change their intended location based on the renown of his father?

He didn't know. He needs to find out.

"John said it would become... an institutional problem," Helen says after a moment, hazy recollection made between two heavy breaths. "He said if they found out that they'd take him in."

"Dr. Adler didn't intend to do that initially?"

She shook her head. "John-... They gave him the needle," and suddenly, she's laughing, taught and dry and angry. "Because he's just so important that-"

It was skirting too close to the line, but Erich cannot impose upon her to silence herself. Not after everything he'd just heard.

God, killing your own boy. Erich does not have children; doesn't really want them, truthfully, but he knows how much the Obergruppenführer loves his. How proud he was of his son and daughters. The lengths he was willing to go for them.

Erich nods and made to stand up, but suddenly finds his arm seized. Helen's grip was strong, all four fingers locked tense, the flesh of her thumb digging into the flat of his wrist.

He stopped in place, immediately regretting it when standing half-doubled over begins to make his chest and abdominal cavity hurt. He'd forgotten about the pain amidst the onslaught of sheer goddamn panic — Erich was good at ignoring it on a regular day as it was, had to be — but the sudden reminder is a painful one. Sounding strained, he grimaces, looking into the woman's face as if to ask.

"John trusts you." She says and, Christ, what was he supposed to say to that? Erich doesn't say anything, jaw working in equal parts thought and discomfort. The woman inches closer to him. "He told us that- if anything was to happen, to go to you first. I- I know that you are friends... But he said-... That we could trust you too. As a family."

Such an insane amount of trust to put into him. And the fact that Erich does not flinch away from the duty at all is... telling. He and Smith were allies, yes, but it went beyond the loyalty between soldier to soldier, soldier to superior. 

It's hard to define. There's a running joke in the New York Sicherheitsdienst Office; _in this building, the Obergruppenführer is God and the Führer is the master of whom hired him. _But despite it's... borderline treacherous intent, it is meant sincerely. It's not like the on-brand, constant rhetoric you hear day in and day out to the Party. It's personal.

It's devotion. Body, and soul.

Here, the official explanation: Erich Raeder will do anything — absolutely anything, for John Smith.

Almost seven years of service has brought with it many a test of base loyalty and the demands have never been too high. Nor will they ever be. Erich knows it. The Obergruppenführer knows it. It's the foundation on which they are built on, the idea that there is nothing more dangerous than a determined man who is willing, the turbulence and raw capability of a man who is dedicated.

Years ago, John Smith saw the way Erich saw things, things that others might find, dangerous... wrong, maybe, and he didn't report it. Saw, also, the way Erich looked away in turn. Pretended otherwise. Biding his time.

The way he got away with it because he was smart enough. To smile and nod and deny, reflect. Shrug and agree, behave. It's the same steps to the same dance and Erich has been doing it since he was a young man. It's not easy, but he is good at it. Good enough. It makes him reliable and it's written time and time again in his file, over and over; he's competent, he follows his orders, and he'll answer why same as everyone else. On and on and on again until-

Until someone noticed. _Really_ noticed.

Erich was always capable. He just needed someone to refine and direct his talents into something sharp, precise. And when the Obergruppenführer gave him that long subtle look that penetrated straight through nearly ten years of feigned invention and into the man that was Erich Raeder himself, when he hinted that under his authority there is a place for those who put loyalty above all, that those who can be trusted shall be rewarded — when he demands for Erich's transfer into his service because_ there is a place like for people like you, Erich_, oh indeed.

He's everything the Obergruppenführer can manipulate. Young and willing but most importantly, loyal. Quiet. And very, very careful. 

And Erich let him pull the strings, and he doesn't mind, because out of two big evils, the Obergruppenführer... 

He's not. For what his teachers forgot to tell him, what his instructors failed to say, is that serving the Reich, putting it first time and time and time again over and over, it's a slow, venomous way to die.

The Reich, Erich gives and gives and it takes and takes and takes and it is too hungry to ever be sated. He's one of thousands upon thousands of men who march along to their deaths, who get spent up and used, and there will never be enough. They'll shoot him dead in a car and wash their hands of it because his life was theirs to spend. They'll stab him in the back and make him a martyr in the same breath because then at least he's _useful_. 

But the Obergruppenführer, see — the Obergruppenführer, here's the difference. He'll take a man's loyalty and he'll take a man's integrity and he'll direct it towards his own goals just as, if not more, ruthlessly than the Reich, but in exchange, he'll also give in return. He'll replace what he takes and replenish and protect, because he recognises the worth in others and knows how to do more than just make the most of what he has — he's learned how to teach, and now to sustain. All he asks in return is Erich's loyalty, his expertise, the willingness to take the lives of those who stand in his way and his devotion to protect those he needs protecting when he himself can't. Nothing else matters. 

And Erich... Erich never stood a chance.

"I'll get you your son back, Helen." He promises her. He stands up and frees himself from her grip and resigns himself, settles himself back into his soldier-man facade because there is only one way to go from here.

The Obergruppenführer is God. And Erich Raeder is his right hand man.

And that's just how it is.

Being in the Obergruppenführer's office without the man in question being there himself feels like a violation of the deepest sort, but Erich is in need of a government telephone that isn't recorded by the State. So after making sure that Helen is seated safely and that everything else in the house is otherwise secure, Sturmbannführer Raeder grabs the handset and dials for Lawrence's office. Once done there, with Lawrence en-route, having placed Tod Metzger in temporary command of the building, Erich makes two more phone calls. One to the nearest garrison, to get into contact with Captain Volkheimer, who will get in touch with Obertruppführer Jacobson and by proxy, his old ARSA unit, and the other to Berlin.

He's not expecting it to get through, so when the other end picks up, Erich is left feeling empty and light in the middle. Vertigo. Like he'd been yanked out into thin air.

"_Helen?"_ The Obergruppenführer — and God, is it good to hear his voice, strained and uncertain but there, real — says, breathing hard but then, pulling himself away from his own selfish inclinations, Erich hates himself.

No, not Helen. He thinks. Not your wife. Just your trusty right hand man, sir. Just your errand boy. Your glorified bullet catcher. Meatshield. Erich pinches the bridge of his nose and finds himself half-collapsing backwards, the small of his back slamming into the side of the man's desk. 

"No, sir. Erich Raeder, sir." The Sturmbannführer replies, weak.

There is a long pause, one of confusion and pregnant concern. "_Erich? Why aren't you back at headquarters... And where's Helen?"_

"In the living room. Safe, sir. Your girls, too." Best to negate some of the outright panic before it can build, and be forthright with everything else. It wasn't time to be coy now. "Sir, I'm sorry. Your boy's turned himself in."

"_He what? Erich- the hell are you...?_ _Thomas_-"

"Turned himself into health authorities. Your wife phoned me, I imagine when she couldn't get into contact with yourself." Erich could hear the mounting anger and dread beyond the other end of the line, could feel the pure horror and deep-seated agony rising a whole content and ocean away. "Sir. Everything is secure here, the building is in lockdown and the Savannah operation suspended. I will concentrate on retrieving Thomas from here with your permission."

"_Thomas- the hell was he thinking?"_ Smith borderline snarls, but Erich can hear the break in his voice, the tremor. "_And I'm- fuck, Erich, the Reichsführer won't let me go. The plot. Not tonight. Oh God, my son- __They can't-_"

They can't know.

"Sir. Do I have your permission to engage?"

Erich does not say how or where, when or against whom. He couldn't. He doesn't even have any such answers prepared. All he knows is he will willingly throw everything and anything he has into getting that boy back in one piece. 

He had to. He owes them that much.

"_I can't- Eric_-"

"Do I have your permission?" Erich snaps back without meaning to, with a surprising amount of force. If he's going to act he needs to know.

He wants to strike the man. Erich feels the urge start in his fingers, and all four of them flex on instinct as he feels his arm tense in anticipation. He knows it's not _him _ thinking that, it's the half-crazy soldier who cannot handle anything without coherent orders. _Tell me what to do_. He wants to scream. _Tell me to do it, and I'll do it. _

Because that's what the man wants, isn't it? Complete, unflinching loyalty and determination. John Smith has spent years moulding Erich into the perfect henchmen, stood by and smiled as Erich committed acts of treason in his name, so why is he hesitating now?

Erich's father once told him, that a man was always one too many fights away from losing his mind. He sure has hell feels like he's crossed that threshold. He's not normally on this much of a hair trigger.

There is a long, drawn out sigh. The Obergruppenführer moves, or adjusts the headset, for all Erich can hear for a three agonising seconds is nothing but creaking plastic, the rustle of something covering the receiver and one long, haggered breath. 

Eventually, John Smith speaks. "_Get my son back, Erich... But be careful. Be very careful._"

"Sir. Yes sir." He turns around, peering through the glass when he hears footsteps behind him. Helen Smith appears in the doorway, and Erich makes a halfhearted pointing gesture at the phone, saying, louder. "Sir. Your wife, would yo-"

He doesn't even get the chance to say it; the Obergruppenführer is half-down his throat with _put her on the phone Erich please God my wife_ and Helen herself is practically launching at him in her desperation to get to the handset. Erich barely has time to move, her nails are scratching the skin of his forearm, right above his watch strap and her left heel accidentally stabs him through the leather of his boot. Erich suppresses the gasp of pain through gritted teeth and hop-steps away.

For a moment, he considers staying, in case John has more orders, anything else to say, but then he hears the helpless pleas and wails of agony that Helen lets loose as she unloads everything onto her husband and he can't. He has to leave.

And that is where Lawrence finds him, when he finally arrives. Stood dead centre of the room with his arms folded, staring at his boots. He doesn't hear the man come in, not at first, and so at the sudden intrusion Erich's hand is instinctively flying down to his handgun's holster. His fingers grab purchase around the flap of the leather covering just as Major Klemm's own wrap around the base of his bicep.

"Watch it." The man hisses, half pushing, half leading Raeder around so they're angled in the direction of the warbling voice on the other end of the house. "The hell is going on, Raeder?"

The man looms over him. Tall and broad shouldered, blocking out the light from the ceiling light, which glows around his head like a halo. Dressed down - which is to say, not in full uniform but rather the dark fatigues of the vague-soldier, deberetly void of rank and company markings to keep them as anonymous as possible. Erich looks up at Klemm and struggles to even find the words.

Lawrence. American-German Major to Erich's German-American Sturmbannführer. Equals, in technicality — wearing identical uniforms with only vaguely differing awards; Lawrence with one additional ribbon and Erich with one more badge from his brief stint in Bialystok (and a 1st class Would Badge... but that wasn't something to gloat over.) They were the most bitter of rivals and the closest of comrades, united in their undying loyalty to a man they both adored and and feared (and wanted to become) in equal measure. 

And Lawrence, God damn him. Lawrence, who's well-maintained rage sits too thinly under the surface, raw kinetic energy to counter Raeder's solid, imperturbable competence. In the workplace, they're perfect; sharp, sometimes cruel, competitive, a pair but distant. Alone, though, they snap together like a knife into a target; they're sparring partners, football playmates, drinking buddies. In his life, Erich Raeder has never met anyone he's so in sync with, and it's _terrifying _that it so happens to be Lawrence Klemm of all people. The Aryan psycho with the sharp edged smile.

When the Obergruppenführer demands they pair off and handle intelligence together they grumble and glare, but they won't work with anyone else, not voluntarily.

Erich deflates, dropping his guard. 

There is no other man that he would trust in this scenario. He closes his eyes, inhales and regards the direction of the office through narrowed eyes. There's nothing else for it.

"Thomas Smith was taken by a Heath Office truck this afternoon," at Lawrence's intimidate look of confusion, he sighs. "The Obergruppenführer wants his son recovered."

"The Department of Public Health? Why?" The man demands. 

Erich shrugs, half-annoyed at the man's lack of foresight, until he remembers that why would he? Everyone in the Reich knew about the laws, but those were for _other people _and Thomas Smith was supposed to be proper Aryan youth. The whole sodding family was championed as a classic example of the perfect family, the classic and true _Volk_. "Whatever the reason, Obergruppenführer Smith thinks believes it to be an error - or foul play."

"I don't see why anyone would take the Obergruppenführer's son if he were healthy."

"Regardless. We have our orders."

Major Klemm does that thing with his eyes — that too-hard stare, the_ careful what you say next look,_ which was an expression one could find on any SS or Nazi official less prone to immediate confrontation in the face of sedition. And Erich feels the uncharacteristic rage build up in his heart, sending his blood coursing. 

_Yes_, he wants to say. _We're committing treason_, but when are they not? Erich has forged official records and neglected transcripts and executed senior Reich officials and facilitated fake kidnappings. Lawrence has stood by quietly and content while a comrade was murdered, reinforced the false narrative, lied in official reports and arrested Reich diplomats on a whim. He's shot and killed soldiers, men on their side. All of it was at the Obergruppenführer's direction. They're steeped in treachery.

Lawrence holds his gaze for five long seconds. Then he sighs. "Protocol demands that they take him to a facility for testing. Thorough testing."

So not a clinic, then. Erich scowls at the carpet. 

"There's at least three of them in this region alone. If we show up at the wrong one they'll be notified. It'll create a paper trail."

"Don't you know every facility by heart?" Lawrence challenges, eyes narrowing. "I thought you were supposed to be the intelligence genius of the office. What, you can rattle off the population numbers of every city under the Reich but you don't know the high target Public Health targets?"

"Oh, come off it." Erich grouses. "And it's hard to think off of the top of my head."

The Major leans forwards, folding his own arms and kicking him in the shin — it's more of a tap, but the meaning is there. "Well think harder, Reader."

"I'm _trying._"

"No such thing. As our dear leader says, do or do not." The man smirks, dark amusement pulling at his features and lighting up his eyes. Erich sees it and sighs. Here they go. Lawrence was in good form today. "What about Heinrich Brook?"

Erich shakes his head. "No, that's a RuSHA office not a holding facility, they won't be taking people there."

"ERH?"

"Doesn't handle minors." Erich mutters, mind churning. "What about Benedictine?"

"Closed after a terrorist incident a year ago." Lawrence replies.

It goes on like this for awhile, the pair of them naming known hospitals and precincts and either striking them off the list of consideration immediately or coming up with reasons as to why they wouldn't fit. Helen stops talking after a while, and both of them stop dead in their tracks when they register the silence, but she doesn't come out of the office. 

Erich rubs both hands down the front of his face. He's just about to give in when he remembers something.

"Wait-" he looks up at Lawrence, who frowns down at him. "Wait. What hospital was I in? Not the one in Manhattan - or the rehabilitation centre. There was one somewhere in the middle."

He can't remember because the entire five weeks he spent there had been spent either completely unconscious or so severely narcotized he couldn't hope to think coherently. It wasn't until he woke up in the RHH over in Roslyn that he started being able to actually recall things clearly.

Erich was out of it for weeks by that point. It's was long time to misplace and truthfully, he feels like he will never get over it.

Lawrence gives him one of those rare, benign looks. "The University Research place?"

Erich grimaces. The very thought of being a patient anywhere directly under the supervision of some of the Reich's most... intense quacks was less than thrilling, to say the least. "I remember... vague conversations. They shared a morgue, I think.. and... you know. Man doesn't recover from brain hypoxia or paralysis of the legs..."

"Which you did." Lawrence stresses, looking annoyed. Then he sighs. "Fuck. It's closer than some of the others. Can you phone..?"

"The second this hits the office, Lawrence..." Erich needn't remind him.

The man's look of annoyance blows up into a full blown scowl, but there's an energy to him. Primed and ready for lift off. "What's even wrong with the boy? It must be serious if they're willing to... go through with it."

"_Nothing._" Erich declares, firm. This is it. Whatever he says now, will become their new narrative. If they succeed, this is the angle they will go with. It's nothing new, really; a lot of Erich's work has always been controlling the details and establishing the context; how the Oberst-Gruppenführer died in action, and not in their custody. How Juilia Mills was a poor disenfranchised woman from the Pacific States, not a Resistance collaborator.

Only difference is, it was Smith designing said half-fictitves, not Erich. Erich was just the guy who handled the paperwork.

But he'd been learning, hadn't he?

"... There's been a disturbance. Thomas Smith never phoned the Department of Public Health, he's merely an upstanding Reich citizen who opted to comply when they took him. He didn't know that they were... terrorists."

It's not the truth. It's not the truth at all, but it would have to learn to be. So Erich says it until it does. Like the oaths and the propaganda, say it until you mean it, say it until you no longer flinch.

Lawrence settles his mouth into a thin, displeased line as Erich continues. "They seized the Obergruppenführer's eldest in revenge. Striking on the day of victory."

"Of course, they're traitors. It would make absolute sense." The Major nods, as all of this is making complete sense, though he still looks uneasy. "And the hospital in question?"

Erich drags his incisor over his bottom lip. He sees Lawrence watching the gesture, eyes locked on to the way Erich's mouth moves, but he doesn't draw any attention to it. He can't. He's too busy agonising over what he'll have to say next. 

"Was... attacked... by said Resistance terrorists." 

Lawrence actually looks shocked. "Attacked?"

"You've seen the reports about the raids on PHD transports. It was only a matter of time before they tried to assault a facility head on. Get access to the building through Thomas Smith and then cause chaos once inside. Two birds with one stone. I imagine they will have done thorough damage in the process."

"And there was just the two of them?" 

No... no. Erich finds himself grasping at the sides of his trousers in agitation. No, they couldn't. Those buildings were well protected, inside and out. It would be a death sentence, and not just for them.

But- he had Lawrence, who was one of the best marksmen in their office, he had Volkheimer — Connolly's replacement, and he had his old SA unit. The lot of them were grunts, low-paid men who weren't treated all that well by the party. Erich had always gone out of his way to be fair with them. Erich had asked for them to join him because he'd thought Helen and the girls might've needed the added protection, but _now_...

"No. I don't think so. Could have easily been a group of resistance fighters posing as SA and SS troopers. It's not unheard of for terrorists to get hold of uniforms."

"What about the Resistance?" 

Both of them turn to see Helen. The woman is looking haggard and utterly distraught, but there is a wary clarity to her eyes that wasn't there before. Erich breathes in hard, glances up at Klemm, who looks utterly uncertain as to how to even look let at all act, and steps forward to Mrs. Smith.

"Ma'am-" The second the word comes out of his mouth, she's tilting her head at him, in that old, half-familiar _I'm not your mother, Erich - Helen will do just fine_, and it's so normal, so ordinary, that he almost smiles without thinking. Then the reality of what he's about to say settles back on his shoulders and he stands up straight. "Helen. We believe that it was the Resistance who took your son-" At her automatic correction, he raises his hand, just a little. "-and therefore it is imperative that we get him back as quickly as possible."

She looks between them, digesting the words and its a testament to her general intelligence and exposure to the... less than honest elements of their work that she doesn't contradict him. 

"I see."

"In the meantime, it is probably not ideal for you to be here alone. I'm sure my mother will be more than happy to accommodate you and your family until we can arrange for something more permanent." 

"Erin?" Lawrence says to Erich, eyebrows hiking so far up his forehead they very nearly reached his hairline. 

Erich responds with a rueful twist of the lip as he escorts Helen to the hallway, helps her into her coat. "We cannot leave her here... and besides, my mother is excellent company." Once Helen is suitably clothed, he gestures to the door. "Do you mind taking her to the car? I have something I need to finish up here."

The man nods, but he doesn't look too happy about it. "Where are you going?"

Under his breath, Erich side-steps away so that Helen is out of earshot.

"To break an extreme personal boundary and raid the poor boy's wardrobe."


	6. Happy VA Day

**NEW YORK  
Greater American Reich - Fall - 1956**

Complete and total conquest is not made in the measure of immediate destruction, but rather in what comes from the days, the weeks, the months in the wake of it. Or, in his case, nine years after the fact on the foggy morning of VA Day.

Berlin had arranged commercial transport for the entourage. Instead of travelling on a military jet, small gaggles of German travellers are quickly succeeded by a bewildered group of SS and regular Wehrmacht, who are then followed by suited German party officials. Lincoln Rockwell International Airport is a sea of last minute relatives, Japanese tourists and uniformed officials both soldier and Party alike, a hivemind of travel.

As they disembarked, the chaos of holiday travel was well into full swing and coupled with the drag of hours spent flying in cramped quarters and the stark realisation that it was morning here, despite having left Berlin at dinnertime, is a bit too much for twenty-eight-year-old Sturmbannführer Raeder.

Erich Raeder hasn't been on American soil since 1948. To be back, after all these years, after spending so much time in the Greater Germanic Reich, was a powerful shock to the system.

So powerful, in fact, that a sudden wave of panic seizes at his limbs and he lingers on the runway, unable to keep on with the rest of the travel-weary crowd. It was too much, too soon. The accents where too familiar and too different — fuck, somehow the _sky _was different here. The sun, the air, everything. It was like being in some warped, alternate reality; everything he expected and nothing of the sort, little things remembered, never forgotten, and repressed things immediately recalled. It was somehow totally wrong and exactly the same and resoundingly right at the same time and-

Erich deliberately turns away from the main throng of masses and faces the powerful machines with their reverberating engines instead. The noise, coupled with a sudden gust of humid jet fuel exhaust was enough to drown out the uncomfortably familiar drawl of the people behind him, and it dulls the edge of the frenzy coursing through his blood. 

This level of panic he had not been expecting. Erich was nervous, yes, to return to America — but he hadn't expected this. 

"Sir?" An attendant asks. A young woman, tall and dark haired and impeccably dressed. She smiles and Erich doesn't even try to mirror the expression; he starts toward the terminal, Erich powering on past her in an attempt to escape her attention, but she met his half-frenzied march without much effort. "Verlangen sie hilfe?"

He blinked and translated the hesitant American-accented German, forming a reply automatically.

"N-" He exhales, swallows. Keep walking, he thought. Try again. No German, anymore. At least, not all the time. Home. He's home. "No. No, thank you."

The attendant is surprised by his American accent. Erich, at least, does not blame her for that. It is an almost universal reaction to Erich Raeder and he has long since learned to deal with it. Ami-Ami Erich or Yankeedoodle Raeder had been the joke back in the Greater Reich. So very volksdeutscher, until he opened his mouth to speak.

She drags her eyes down the front of Erich's suit, taking in the NSDAP badge preset on his lapel and the Deutscher Segler-Verband pin that sits just below it, masking her confusion after only a moment of floundering. Professionalism soon took over.

"Are you here with the rest of the Berlin entourage?" She asks politely and it was Erich's turn to pause.

His place within the military hierarchy was not immediately obvious. What little he owned had already been sent ahead and all the uniforms he had owned previously would no longer suffice, what with the imminent change in both rank and branch of the Schutzstaffel. Normally a man would wear his uniform until it he arrived a the quartermaster, but it is VA day and Erich is off duty. It left him with the only civilian suit he owned, a navy blue number which had been purchased at the insistence of his father upwards of a year ago when they'd briefly reconnected in Berlin. In that time, Erich had put on weight, and he personally felt that he gave the impression of an oversized candidate for first communion.

It was the first time in months that he had been out of uniform and he wondered if he looked as awkward as felt. 

"I..." Erich trails off, forehead creasing as his mouth works itself open. He does not know how to answer this woman's question, or if he even could.

His instructions were aggravatingly obtuse. He was to be sent along with the rest of the men from Berlin on a twelve-fifteen flight and land in New York but his orders after that where bizarrely absent. Wherever someone would be meeting him or if he would have any sort of official transport had not been mentioned. He didn't even know where he was to be going, or where he would even stay.

The Obergruppenführer had simply given his modest orders and left it at that.

And because orders are orders and must be obeyed, Erich hadn't said anything. He'd simply done as he was told. Get on the plane, and land in New York. But now that he is here, he is drawing a blank. He's reached the threshold. 

Fortunately, or maybe, unfortunately, the Obergruppenführer's intentions were broader than his original orders. 

"Ah, there you are." Someone calls over the undercurrent of other noises, and Erich immediately turns about-face in the direction of the the voice, instinct overriding thought.

His suspicions are confirmed when his eyes lock on the Obergruppenführer himself. There is a moment of slight confusion, as Erich has never seen Obergruppenführer Smith in anything but a uniform before and was therefore taken aback by the half-formal display of open jacket and dark leather oxfords, but after a hesitant pause which felt painfully far too long, Erich mentally kicks himself and snaps into a salute.

"Obergruppenführer," Erich greets. "Seig Heil!"

"Seig Heil, Erich." The Obergruppenführer returns with a half salute, easy, loose. He gestures to the rest of the building. "Welcome home. Happy VA Day."

Welcome home. Erich looks across at the busy chaos of travel around him, hears the warbling in-and-out of accents, sees the Nazi-inspired American architecture, symbolism. Stars and stripes and swastikas. It is a calculated move. Of course, most of what came out of the Obergruppenführer's mouth is always viciously calculated. Yet, he can't find the energy to angle himself. 

He doesn't want to play the game, not today. Not now.

"Thank you, sir," Erich nods and tries to act... normal, But he's bewildered. He's waiting to... wake up or... something. Find himself back in Cologne. Or Luxembourg. He reaches back for his briefcase to give himself something to do.

The Obergruppenführer, all easy posture and subtle smiles outstretches one arm and barely waits for Erich to stand up straight before clasping him suddenly on the shoulder and guiding him across the terminal. It looked friendly, outwardly, but Erich also feels a slight connotation that is more possessive than jovial. He is practically stumbling to keep up with the older man.

"I've got him from here, thank you." The Obergruppenführer says at the attendant, steering Erich off and away. Once they were out of earshot, he releases the Sturmbannführer, but keeps him in line by firmly setting the pace in which they walked. "How did the rest of the operation go, after I left? Heard you took a bullet in Luxembourg."

Instead of being immediately transfered, Erich Raeder had spent the last one-hundred-and-seven days in the middle of an investigation into suspected French-American Semite cells ingratiating the trade migration. It had ended in the Esch-sur-Alzette commune, with over fifteen arrests, twice as many dead, a half-burned out trade building and in Erich's case, getting jumped on by a no less than three inexperienced SA auxiliaries in their attempt to shield him from a rouge machine gun. Exciting for all the wrong reasons.

A ranging success, though, as far as these things went. Erich's last ever operation on Greater Germanic Reich soil and with it, an awarded second-class _Bandenkampfabzeichen _ badge for over a fifty combat days of bandit-fighting.

"I wouldn't say I took it, sir."

"No?"

"Sir. A graze, sir." It hadn't left a scar, nor was he hospitalised. Erich watches the Obergruppenführer lean back, glance up and down at the vague region of his torso. 

"Well, I'm glad to hear it. Just don't make a habit out of finding trouble, Sturmbannführer — I prefer my men and my city intact." A small, amused little smile. "Both tend to stick around a lot longer that way."

Erich nods, conceding. He's led to a spot near the turnaround, to a parked 1955' Mercury, one of the big, floating numbers with the wood detailing on the side. John Smith must own his own car — it's not the standard issue Volkswagen or one of the other upper end vehicles for senior officers. 

Sturmbannführer Raeder gives it a critical once over. "Monterey 95'," he mutters, then remembers whom it is he is talking to, and speaks up properly. "Fresh out of production?"

"You know your cars," The Obergruppenführer says, somewhere between amused and impressed. "I wanted something with room for the children. Don't want them growing up with all this-" he waves a hand at the men in uniform, standing by the doors to various black Volkswagen's. Drivers. "-chauffeuring around business. Every American should have a family car, Erich."

Erich, who prefers his cars a little less boat-looking, simply nods as he was directed to the front passenger seat. The interior is spacious and new. The Sturmbannführer, who has been dealing with troop carriers and five-men patrol cars and motorcycles for the last four months going on eight years, was left feeling... unsure. Too big. Americans liked their cars spacious, he knew, but its all the same in the Reich, these days. Growing room. Massive monuments and massive houses and massive cars. What did they even need all this space for?

"You'll have to forgive my driving. I'm still getting used to it." The Obergruppenführer says in the way of false apology, slipping into the driver's seat, reaching for the wheel, for the ignition. 

Erich tracks the movement in the corner of his eye. It's hard to draw his attention away from the man's hands.

"Yessir." Automatic, unflinching. Erich peers through the windscreen and instead focuses on three AR-Waffen troopers, likely surplus protection for the parade, to give himself something else to focus on.

Then, a thought comes to him, and Erich realises he's been led along like a stunned puppy on a leash — he had no idea where the hell he is even going.

He turns to regard the Obergruppenführer, who is manoeuvring a left-turn while reversing with great care. "And, where are we driving?"

"Long Island." The man replies, and Erich frowns. "Kind of awkward that your superiors would send you off on this day in particular, you know." He leans his head to the side as if to say 'what can you do?' then he gives Erich that knowing look that he recognised from before, back during the early days of the operation. It usually meant trouble. "But we're always prepared for unexpected visitors and far-flung prodigals alike, Helen and I."

Erich tries to make an attempt of declination — to spend such a major holiday with his superior's family felt... incredibly inappropriate, especially as it was his first day back, but all he manages to get out is a pathetic half-choked noise of objection. The Obergruppenführer, apparently, isn't having any of it.

"Now, now." The Obergruppenführer tuts, smirking. "Steady now, Erich. We insist."

What else was he supposed to do? Erich Reader shifts in his seat, feeling wrong and inadequate in a suit that didn't fit, jet-lagged, trapped in this great floating automobile and wonders if the Obergruppenführer had the foresight to lock the car doors.

If the John notices Erich slowly reaching out to check, he doesn't say anything.


	8. Welcome Home

**SIX YEARS AGO**

The family celebrations go off without a hitch, even with the presence of their newfound expatriate.

John, of course, is not surprised. Helen is a wonderful woman, accommodating and friendly, the perfect hostess. Eleven-year-old Thomas delights in the presence of another male figure and is suitably courteous. Jennifer is less certain, but by no means impolite. Amy is far more gregarious, but that was his Amy — much like her mother, open and direct.

Erich is excruciatingly polite, but John can tell, the man has no idea what to do with them. He gives Helen a gift of a powerful Riesling wine in a dry style from the Rheinpfalz, and the children, a box of Jolly Ranchers hard candy (to share, of course) but that is all common courtesy. John had intended to use this time to both examine Raeder and bound him to his cause in equal measure, but its made a fair bit harder by the fact that the man is just...

Nervous, or something. Raeder has always been quiet, the perfect professional from what he can tell, but there is an uncharacteristic listlessness there that John doesn't quite know what to deal with. 

Erich answers questions about the Greater Reich and Cologne, even Serbia, with easy grace. He in turn asks about America generally — have they heard much of Norfolk? How much as New York changed? What is the American HJ like? Fun? — and it's all very polite, very civil. 

Helen is impressed with Erich. She smiles at his pretty manners and gracious comments. She appreciates, John thinks, that he doesn't go overboard on the Party gospel. 

Until, that is, his eldest daughter furrows her brow at the vague region of Erich's torso and asks, half-way innocently. "What's that badge for?"

Erich, all perfect manners, finishes off the forkful of food he's chewing and wipes his mouth with his napkin before looking down at his lapel. Aside from the atypical party badge, pre-1947 Germanic NSDAP and not the American regional successor, there's a white-on-blue pin he doesn't recognise. John gives it a glance and then goes back to cutting his chicken into two.

"Deutscher Segler-Verband." The Sturmbannführer explains. 

"German... Sail...?" Thomas furrows his brows as he tries to translate, the wheels of his half-learned 5th grade school German turning in his mind.

Erich gives him a small nod. "German Sailing Association, that's right."

"You drive boats?" Amy asks, glowering when Jennifer corrects her with a _'sail'_. 

"I do." Erich replies. "From when I was about your age, actually."

Nothing surprising there. John and Helen share a private smile, and as her husband makes to refill her glass, and then Erich's, she says. "Just like your father then."

The response is... interesting. Erich smiles politely but doesn't otherwise make to expand on it. John files it away for later, another little detail about Erich D. Raeder to puzzle upon.

Thomas looks at him from across the table, head tilted. "Your dad is a sailor too?"

"Oh he's _the_ sailor, son," John laughs and because he's the man in charge, Erich's automatic response is to agree with him, immediately copying the gesture even though he clearly doesn't find it funny. "The name isn't just a coincidence. Who's the Generaladmiral of the American Kriegsmarine, Thomas?"

Military affairs, both of current events and historical make up a large chunk of Thomas' education. He looks at his father as if he's stupid. "Dietrich Raeder, the nephew of the former grandadmiral who joined the Axis forces in-"

And there they have it. Thomas realises the connection and stares at the Sturmbannführer as if he'd suddenly sprouted a second head. His parents laugh at his startled expression.

Erich, looking somewhat uncomfortable but otherwise forced to engage, gives the boy a small smile. "Caught me."

Under normal circumstances, it would be enough. But his son is an eager young member of the Reich, and he's at that age where he's starting to comprehend some of the more complex nuisances without entirely understanding why they are complex in the first place. He isn't going to let it go. John can see him thinking, dark eyes alight with _questions_, and can only brace himself. 

"But if you like to sail and your dad is the Generaladmiral, why did you join the SS like Father?" Thomas asks, genuinely perplexed. "Didn't you want to join the war navy, too?"

It's an interesting question, one that John already knows the answer too. It's written in his file. 

But Raeder's response is not what he expects. What should in all rights be a rigid example of minor self-sacrifice turns out to be far more emotionally charged. The man looks genuinely upset, eyes dropping to the tablecloth, his hand automatically grabbing for his drink. He takes a long swig, either to give himself time to respond or cover up the sudden tense of his jaw. John glances at Helen just in time to see her realise it too, sees her pity. 

Eventually, Erich looks up at the boy and fixes him with a tight, rigid smile. "The Reich decided that I would best serve my country in the SS."

It's a good answer, simple and rote. John decides to come to the rescue. As he drops his napkin onto his knees, he reaches over the clasp Raeder on the shoulder. "And the wisdom of the Reich, as you know Thomas, is impeccable. Erich is an excellent soldier and officer, which is why I brought him home to America. We need loyal and capable soldiers now more than ever."

Agreement fills the table. Helen nodding quitly as she sips at her wine, the girls nodding because their mother is, half-aware, and then Thomas following along, grinning around his spoon. 

"Thank you, sir." Erich says at the tablecloth, fingers fretting at the edges of his cutlery. 

But the shoulder beneath his open palm is slowly relaxing. John smiles, squeezes down once, and returns back to his meal.

Perhaps this exercise would reap some reward after all.


End file.
